Israel’s military has carried out strikes in both Gaza and Lebanon this week, leaving several people dead despite their ceasefires with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Over the weekend, Israeli troops carried out strikes in Beirut targeting Hezbollah’s chief of staff, Ali Tabtabai, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The operation represented Israel’s willingness to escalate their missions as the country’s leaders see fit.
They launched a series of strikes in Gaza on last Wednesday, killing roughly two dozen people, which, they said, was prompted by militants opening fire on troops near the southern city of Khan Younis. And, a day earlier, the Israelis carried out strikes in southern Lebanon, killing about a dozen people and wounding several others in a refugee camp. Israel said Hamas, in Lebanon, was using the camp to carry out attacks on Israel, which Hamas denied.
These continuing operations and whether the parties are abiding by the agreements threaten to plunge the region back into a state of war.
Israel and Hamas’s ceasefire went into effect a little more than a month ago, and the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire was initiated about a year ago. Both ceasefire agreements called on Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza and Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of Hamas and for Hezbollah forces south of the Litani River to disarm.
“I think that Israel is continuing to push for its objectives in every place that it can through the region,” Rosemary Kelanic, the Middle East Director for Defense Priorities, told the Washington Examiner, adding that despite the ceasefires, Israel has “a pretty consistent pattern of continuing to press the advantage, even when a ceasefire is on at a low level, such that they don’t get any kind of blowback from the United States for doing it.”
Lebanon
Israel and Hezbollah started cross-border aerial attacks the day after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack, which was the most deadly attack in Israel’s history. They exchanged missile and rocket barrages for about a year until Israeli forces began a ground campaign targeting Hezbollah and their stockpiles of weapons. Israeli forces carried out the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah last September.
Israel is still carrying out strikes in southern Lebanon.
“Israel every day is bombing the south” of Lebanon, U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack said earlier this month. “Why? Because you still have thousands of rockets and missiles that are threatening it. They have been very clear. After 7 October, Israel has said, we are going to defend our boundaries… You put your weapons down, Hezbollah, and we will not have a problem.”
Hezbollah, in addition to being a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, is also a part of the Lebanese government and Barrack, who serves as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and the special envoy for Syria, said during this month’s International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue that he doesn’t believe it’s “reasonable to tell Lebanon to forcibly disarm one of its political parties” over concerns that it could lead to a civil war.
“The principal problem is that I think Hezbollah has deterred the Lebanese Armed Forces from actually completing Hezbollah’s disarmament. And the effect of that is the Israelis are getting increasingly frustrated with the Lebanese Armed Forces being unable to disarm Hezbollah, and so you’re seeing the strikes and so forth,” Brian Carter, the Critical Threats Project research manager at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner.
The most recent conflict between the two that predated the post-Oct. 7 war was in 2006 and that monthlong conflict ended with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for Hezbollah to move north of the Litani River, which runs parallel to the Israel-Lebanon border.
The ceasefire deal that the two sides agreed to last year was designed to enforce the U.N. resolution that hadn’t been enforced two decades ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month that the country’s armed forces would “act as necessary” if the Lebanese army is unable to disarm Hezbollah. He has made similar comments about Hamas in Gaza.
Gaza
Israel and Hamas agreed to end the war last month and the ceasefire has largely held despite some isolated attacks.
Israeli forces have withdrawn from parts of Gaza and Palestinians have been allowed to return to the northern parts of the enclave. Notably, Hamas has not agreed to demilitarize even if it ensures an enduring peace.
The United Nations Security Council voted on a resolution endorsing President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza earlier this week. But, it does not resolve two of the core issues that have prevented previous negotiations from successful resolutions — Hamas disarmament and a pathway to Palestinian statehood, the latter of which was a key component in getting several Arab nations on board to support the plan.
Hamas still has some capabilities despite being significantly weakened by the extended conflict with Israel’s more advanced military.
The war has destroyed much of Gaza with most of the population having been evacuated from their homes, many of which have been reduced to rubble. The Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, has reported that the war has resulted in the killing of more than 60,000 Palestinians, though that total does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, and does not include bodies that remain trapped under rubble.
Iran
Iran has long provided resources to a number of allied militant groups in the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah. They utilized their “Axis of Resistance” for decades to target Israel, but had refrained from direct military attacks on Israel until the post-Oct. 7 war.
Israel and Iran engaged in 12 days of intense aerial strikes last June. The U.S. joined Israel for one mission to target three of Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facilities. The two sides agreed to end the conflict after less than two weeks, but the decades of hostility remain very much among the leaders of both countries.
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Despite the war in which Israeli forces targeted military leaders, nuclear scientists and their nuclear infrastructure, Iranian leaders say they are prepared for a new fight.
“Our missiles are in a better position, quantity-wise and quality-wise. We have learned many lessons during the 12-day war. We understood our weak points and our points of strength, and the Israelis’ weak points. We have worked on all of them and we are fully prepared even better than the previous time. It doesn’t mean that we want war,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the Economist this week.
